Bachman v. Bear, Stearns & Co., Inc.

57 F. Supp. 2d 556, 1999 WL 652055, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13183
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedAugust 18, 1999
Docket98 C 7249
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 57 F. Supp. 2d 556 (Bachman v. Bear, Stearns & Co., Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bachman v. Bear, Stearns & Co., Inc., 57 F. Supp. 2d 556, 1999 WL 652055, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13183 (N.D. Ill. 1999).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

MORAN, Senior District Judge.

Plaintiff William R. Bachman (Bachman) brings this action against defendant Bear, Stearns & Co., Inc. (Bear Stearns) seeking compensation for defendant’s alleged role in a scheme orchestrated by the directors of Bachman’s former employer. Bach-man’s four-count complaint alleges conspiracy to defraud, fraud, negligent misrepresentation and violations of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act (Consumer Fraud Act), 815 ILCS 505/1 et seq. Bear Stearns has moved to dismiss on grounds that the action is barred by the applicable statutes of limitations and that the complaint fails to state a claim. For the reasons set forth below, defendant’s motion is granted and plaintiffs complaint is dismissed in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

Because this is a motion to dismiss we must accept as true all well-pleaded allegations in the complaint. Land v. Chicago Truck Drivers Union, 25 F.3d 509, 511 (7th Cir.1994). Bachman was employed by Calumet Coach Corporation (Coach) from 1967 through June 1990, and was a common and preferred stockholder of Coach’s parent corporation, Calumet Acquisition Corporation (Calumet). The companies were involved in the manufacture of trailers and vehicles to house specialized medical imaging products for medical care providers (cplt-¶ 66). In September 1988, Merrill Lynch Interfunding, Inc. (MLIF) purchased a majority interest in Calumet. John Ferrell (Ferrell) was employed as a vice-president of MLIF and was the senior employee responsible for the Calumet purchase transaction (cplt-¶¶ 8,16).

As a component of the purchase transaction Bachman and other management shareholders sold half the equity they then owned in the predecessor company for cash and converted the other half into an increased percentage of common stock ownership in Calumet (cplt.f 15). They also entered into new stockholder’s and employment agreements (cplt-¶ 17). The stockholder’s agreement provided, inter alia, that Bachman would participate in an increased percentage of common stock if Calumet met certain profit targets, which it did (cplt-¶ 19); that one of three-named independent organizations, including Bear Stearns, would be selected to ascertain the fair market value of the stock, should the need arise (cplt-¶ 18); and that MLIF, Calumet, or other shareholders could acquire Bachman’s common stock upon his employment termination at either fair market value or book value, depending on whether Bachman was terminated for cause *558 (cplt.1T 17). At the time of these events Calumet common stock had a lower book value than market value (cplt.V 23).

Bachman alleges that Joe Snyder (Snyder), Calumet’s president and chief executive officer, and Ferrell tried to force Bachman to resign so that Calumet could reacquire his stock at book value (cpltl 41). Bachman refused to leave. In a meeting on May 7, 1990, Bachman was discharged without cause, effective June 30, 1990, and an offer was tendered to purchase his common stock for $188,802 (cplt-¶¶ 43, 49). Bachman rejected the offer and, believing that other Calumet shareholders were withholding relevant financial documents in an effort to defraud him of his employment and the true value of his stock, Bachman sued Calumet, MLIF, Ferrell, and Snyder (the Calumet defendants) in the Circuit Court of Cook County on October 17, 1990. (Bachman v. Calumet Acquisition Corp., et. al (Bachman I), No. 90CH10162).

On November 8, 1990, Calumet exercised its option to acquire all of Bachman’s common stock at fair market value and arranged for a stock valuation by Bear Stearns in accordance with the procedures set forth in the shareholder agreement (cplt.t 51). Bachman did not object to Bear Stearns being selected to conduct the valuation (cplt-¶ 53), and the firm issued its first report on January 28, 1991. Bear Stearns concluded that the fair market value of Calumet’s common stock equity on January 17, 1991, was $51 million and that Bachman’s percentage of the fully diluted common stock was 2.49 per cent. Bear Stearns submitted a revised report in December 1991, which valued Calumet at $53 million, and, accordingly, the value of Bachman’s stock interest at $1,312,000.

After contentious discovery battles and a lengthy trial, the court entered its judgment on May 5, 1995 (Bachman I Order), awarding compensatory and punitive damages in favor of Bachman on claims of fraud, breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty. Rejecting the Bear Stearns’ calculations, the court found that Calumet’s stock equity was actually worth $95 million, that Bachman’s percentage of the fully diluted common stock was 3.18 per cent, and that the fair market value of Bachman’s stock on January 17, 1991, was $3,021,000 (Order at 60).

Despite the fact that Bear Stearns was not a party to the litigation, the court also found that Bear Stearns acted in bad faith in valuing Calumet’s stock, based on evidence that the firm had destroyed documents given to the valuation committee, had twice revised its valuation, had unreasonably skewed the pool of comparable companies, and had improperly used a harmonic mean, rather than an arithmetic mean, for the computation (Order at 61). Trial testimony revealed that contemporaneously with the Bachman valuation the Calumet defendants were developing a preliminary SEC registration statement for a possible IPO. The company’s valuation for the IPO prospectus was based on a different set of comparable companies than the set used for the Bachman valuation (cplt. ¶ 76; Order at 29-30). Using the IPO set, which included health care companies that arguably bore a greater resemblance to Calumet, Kidder Peabody provided an estimated valuation of Calumet at $115 to $130 million (cplt. ¶ 78; Order at 43). Shortly thereafter, in June 1991, Merrill Lynch, Kidder Peabody and Smith Barney reached a consensus preliminary equity valuation in June 1991 of $100 million (Order at 44, cplt. ¶ 78). It is unclear from Bachman’s complaint whether Bear Stearns was made aware of these estimates. 1

It was clear to the state court, however, that Bear Stearns revised its valuation *559 down from $70 million to $51 million in the two weeks before the report was issued and then destroyed all documents showing how the original figure had been computed (Order at 52, 61). It was also clear that Bear Stearns had been given three inconsistent sets of unit sales projections and had used the set which produced the lowest valuation (cplt-¶ 84). Bachman now contends that the Bear Stearns valuations were fraudulent misrepresentations prepared in bad faith to help the Calumet defendants acquire his stock for less than its true value. However, apparently because evidence illuminating Bear Stearns’ procedures came out late in the trial, the firm was never joined as a defendant in Bachman I (plf.mem.in opp. at 2).

On May 1, 1996, Bachman filed a new three-count complaint against Bear Stearns in federal court Bachman v. Bear Stearns & Co., Inc. (Bachman II), and the case was assigned to Judge Ann Williams.

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Bluebook (online)
57 F. Supp. 2d 556, 1999 WL 652055, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13183, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bachman-v-bear-stearns-co-inc-ilnd-1999.